


In Which One Hoarse, Screaming Voice Goes Unheard

by concavecrowns



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, fun times, not jackxOC i promise i swear please read this omg crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 00:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concavecrowns/pseuds/concavecrowns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very lonely girls happens to be confessing to the cold, night air, contemplating dark thoughts, when the memory of a boy resurfaces. She saw a movie before, something about a Jack Frost... Wouldn't it be nice to not be alone, and have him just appear out of nowhere, and they'd have a grand old time? Ha, yeah right. Like life was all cherries and roses and fun times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which One Hoarse, Screaming Voice Goes Unheard

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. This is actually the fastest story I've ever written, which is weird. I mean, I've gone through some of this stuff, but ever since I started RPing Jack, writing him has just become much easier. It's almost natural. (Hope that means it's IC.) Well! I hope you like this, and maybe you can relate. It's kind of a shitty story, but I like the little subtle things I put in it.
> 
> Alternatively, I was going to name it "In Which Subtlety Begets Death," but I thought that this was more fitting to the whole...feel of it. Going unheard and feeling alone seems to be something almost all of us share in the RoTG fandom. We can relate. So. I hope you don't hate me for this. Here's my crap, from my heart.

“Y’know... I’ve never noticed how short of a fall it would be, from my balcony...” a young girl’s voice trailed off. Tangled, brown strands blowing listlessly across her wind-reddened face, she leaned over the railing. “If I was lucky, my neck would break. But it’s more likely my leg or...an arm would. And I don’t really need a broken leg.” 

A booted foot kicked feather-light snow off the wooden structure. Again she kicked at the snow, anger now in her movements. She paced across the small area and scuffed her feet against the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground, small, quiet grunts of frustration accompanying them. The shaky movements stopped without warning, and she slumped to the splintering floor. Cold snow met the butt of her jeans, and she welcomed it. 

“I came out here, thinking the cold would calm me down... But it hasn’t. I’m just...here, home alone, and... No one would get it. Everything’s falling apart.” She sniffled before continuing, “But my life isn’t so bad, what am I whining about, everyone else’s problems are so much worse than mine, I don’t even have the right—” The brunette was heaving now, close to hysterics. 

Her tan jacket rustled as she stood, the world spinning around her. Whether it was from her sudden movement or her short, panting breaths, she didn’t care. It was probably both. She was light headed, and it was hard to focus, or move, or do anything. Her lungs refused to hold deep breaths, but she forced the air in. _One..._ She counted the length of her breaths, how long she inhaled the biting air. _One, two..._ It was a trick she had taught herself. It was the only way she could force herself to breathe, most nights. Or days. Or afternoons.

Once her lungs were gingerly accepting oxygen, she leaned against the edge, exhausted. She was calmer, but she was definitely not okay. “I’m seriously thinking about—it would be so easy... What’s wrong with me...” she finished dejectedly, bitterly laughing.

A knee bent through the unstable bars of the railing, and brown eyes scanned the dark sky. The moon had just risen. _It’s beautiful_ , she thought dully. Staring at the snowy ground and closing her eyes, she calmly placed her foot on the bottommost rung of the railing. Her shoulders jolted forward, as if anticipating swinging over the thin, metal structure and trying to get the rest of her body to follow suit. Just to sit on the edge. The brunette just really liked heights, that’s all it was, she liked heights...

“I hate my life.” 

A freezing wind stirred the air then, cutting her cheeks. Her head snapped North-wards, the direction the breeze had come. “Really? It’s cold enough out here, and I just got breathing again, I really don’t need you forcing yourself down my throat. I get that enough. Just...leave me alone.”

As if in answer, the wind stopped dead. Furrowing her brow, the girl shook her head and turned her attention back to the sky. A long, blackened cloud had covered up the Moon. A movie that the youth had seen weeks ago floated back into her head. It was a kid’s movie, but it had stirred up something inside her.

“Jack...Frost. Okay, there, I said it. I believe, okay? I believe because I just really, really want to. And I’m talking to nothing.” The brunette mumbled to herself before she raised her voice, “I just...really need a friend. I heard somewhere that if I say your name, say something, the wind would just, just take my words to you, and you’d hear it. Which is sappy, but I like it. So, come on. I don’t wanna be your...fangirl, or take you to bed,” she shuddered, “Or even really do anything but...hang out? Talk? I just...”

The railing violently shuddered and creaked as the girl angrily shook it hard. It vibrated, echoing her anxiety. Puffs tumbled away in the air, a testament to her panting. Shaking, she stared longingly into space.

“I just don’t care...”

“What don’t you care about?” asked a casual voice.

Brown tresses bounced as her head shot up at once. Was that...someone talking off to her left? While she was on the highest floor, on her balcony? Anticipation bubbled up from her heart as the brunette slowly turned her head...

And saw nothing. The endorphins and adrenaline left her as quickly as her sigh, sad and accepting. “Now I know I’m crazy.”

“If you’re crazy, then I’m really messed up. But then, I knew that already,” a boy’s voice bounced from her right.

The girl shot a look at the empty air. _Seriously?_ She squinted at the space and shivered. The right half of her body was really cold, as if there was a draft coming from empty air. A wispy image began to form, blue and white and brown. Slowly, a shaky mirage of a boy appeared. He was around her age, too.

“Are you serious?” she said disbelievingly, her tone dripping with something heavy. The boy’s form solidified, very, very real.

“Wait... You can see me? You can, you can actually see me?” the boy asked excitedly. Emotions fluidly flew across his face, plain as day, as he spoke. Squinting disbelief and shock; wide-eyed surprise; and finally, elation as a pure white smile broke out on his pale face. Hoodie-clothed arms swept out in an excited gesture. “And you heard me! You're, you're looking at me!”

The brunette physically shook herself out of her overly-observant spell. “Uh. Yeah. Though I didn’t before... And I know I’m not this crazy.” The girl leaned further forward against the railing and stared at the boy with frosted, white hair. “You’re Jack Frost, aren’t you.”

A warm smile graced the spirit’s face, his icy eyes melting briefly. “Yep, that’s me. Jack Frost, the Fun guy. At your service,” he finished with a swooping bow.

“You seriously just...come up and—appear after I went through that whole spiel—Wait, were you listening that whole time?” she asked, anger rising in her tone.

“Whoa, no, no, I just...noticed you, just now,” Jack said, his free hand up in surrender. “I felt like hanging around.” His tall shepherd’s hook arced through the air as the spirit wound around the balcony and landed on the railing. It made no sign that a seventeen-something boy was crouching on it, not one single creak.

“So. What’s your name?” Jack asked, figuring that familiarity was the best place to start.

“...Rachel. And you’re Jack. Nice to meet you and all that. I...did want to meet you, though.”

“Oh yeah? How come?”

“Well, you’re...you. You just...get it. And you’re a cool guy, excuse the pun.”

“No, no, puns are completely, one-hundred-percent okay. I just don’t do snow puns. Well, maybe once,” Jack said, moving his weightless balance from one bare foot to the other.

“Anyway,” Rachel stressed before what she was sure would be more Jack Frost ramblings. “I just...I just want a friend. That’s all.”

Jack smiled. “I like friends. Consider yourself part of the circle! It’s very exclusive,” he joked before sedating his grin. He continued, managing to keep his voice casual, but sincere, “But you said you don’t care, and by the looks of it, how you’re leaning against this ah, pretty shoddy railing, it’s not good. So...what’s wrong?”

“Hey, Girl-I-Just-Met, yeah, nice to meet you to, I see you’re contemplating jumping off this here building, how’s that going for you?” Rachel drawled with sarcasm. She winced, immediately regretting it. “Sorry. Just... This is weird.”

Despite the apology, Jack looked chagrined. Icy blue eyes glanced up at her through his perfectly tousled bangs. God, he sucked at this. Words weren't exactly his strong suit. He offered a quiet, “I know.”

The silence drew out the brunette’s words like a string she had swallowed that had wrapped itself around her intestines. Painful. “I have...people who pay attention to me. Sometimes. But I’m always put second. Or third. ....Or last. No one...really cares. I’m just...alone.” She took a moment to breathe, working her jaw. Continuing slowly, she said, “I don’t know what to do with myself. Sure, people say they care, sometimes, but—I can’t tell who means it and who doesn’t anymore. Too many... Too many times they’ve—I just wanna...”

The frost spirit raised his speckled brows, waiting. When Rachel's silence stretched on more than a few seconds, Jack softly urged, “You just wanna...what?”

“I don’t... Run away. I wanna... I just need to get out of here. But I always run away.” She was talking faster now, almost panicked. “I’ve always left, or they leave me, and—I can’t handle it anymore. So...” Rachel's arms swung out in a wide, final gesture. She continued off-kilter, “Here I am. Staring at the ground like it’s my friend. How are you?”

Jack swung one leg onto the floor and held the other to his chest as he spoke. His wooden staff rested against his shoulder. He vaguely gestured and shifted as he said, “I’m, ah, I’m good. Could be better, haven’t been a Guardian for too long, so there are some...things to get used to. But see, I have a problem. I keep meeting these pretty great people who have these, ah, issues. They’re sad, and that sucks. A lot of them are my believers. So...” He mimicked Rachel's earlier gesture. “Here I am.”

A lop-sided smirk played across the girl’s cheeks. “Sassy brat.”

“Oh, if you think that’s sassy, just wait. Aaand technically, I’m older than you, by a lot, so I can’t be a brat.” Jack grinned unrepentantly, his faded pink tongue peeking out from between his teeth.

“Cute,” Rachel drawled. Her smile quickly dropped, though, as she said, “I don’t really...wanna talk about my stupid problems. Could we just, like...play in the snow or something?”

Jack’s gaze travelled up and down the girl’s figure, briefly weighing his options. _Try and fix it with talking...or play a few games?_ In the end, Jack fell back on his center. He snatched the girl right off the planks and took to the air, laughing. Rachel screamed, but her squeals soon turned to peals of excited giggles, then raucous laughter. To Jack, it sounded like this girl hadn’t laughed for real in a very long time.

Just like that, Jack Frost and the—if everyone around her was to be believed—unimportant girl played in the snow. They created snowmen and knocked them down, crashing into them. Snowballs soared through the air, and they darted between parked cars. Jack, of course, used the help of the Wind to whip behind Rachel and pelt her in the face when she turned. 

After some amount of time that neither of them could tell, they both fell back into the cushioning welcome of the cold snow. The dampness went completely unnoticed to Rachel; she was too soaking to feel it anymore. Her layers weren’t doing much good.

As their laughter died down, Jack propped himself up on an elbow and leaned closer to the girl’s flushed face. Smiling, he said, “I think you should go inside.”

“What? Jack Frost is telling me to get out of the cold?” she chuckled. “What madness is this?”

“It’s true, though. I’m only saying it because,” he trailed off as he pointed at the Moon, high in the sky, “It’s probably, oh...five in the morning? Six?”

“Oh, I guess I do have school in the morning... They had cancelled it today,” Rachel replied dully, her voice far-off as she stared at the muted stars.

“Snow day?”

“Snow day,” she said as she turned to him with a grin. “You’re probably right though... I guess this is where you fly off and I grow up and never see you again, forgetting we ever did this?”

Hurt flickered across Jack’s face before his easy smile hid it away. “You’re not planning on _growing up_ now, are you?”

Rachel grinned more broadly than she had in a long, long time. “Never.”

“Good. Remember this, that there are always little moments like this, fun stuff and good people, that make life worth living. Promise me you won’t forget that. Okay?” Jack pleaded sincerely. 

“Oh, so that’s your moral,” Rachel commented flippantly. “Alright. I promise. Or...I’ll try. I won’t forget you, either. Got it?”

Jack’s practically ever-present smile became one of silent gratitude. He nodded. “Okay.”

“So you have to at, at least zip through the sky or...skip over the moon every five years or something, to remind me. Or I’m gonna be pissed.”

Entirely unhelpful laughter shook Jack’s shoulders. “Alright, I can do that.”

“And I’ll send irritated, depressing messages to all the Jacks on tumblr, and they’ll be sad too, and it’ll all be your fault, Jack Frost.” She leaned closer, feeling the cold drifting from the Guardian’s body. “So don’t be a jerk.”

Icy eyes twinkled. “No promises, there. I’m always a jerk. Well, okay, sometimes, very rarely, but no one seems to see it that way... But yes, I promise. I’ll drop by, give you a regular Kodak moment.” Forcing himself to be serious and not protect himself with jokes and flippant comments, Jack continued, “I won’t forget you, either.”

A fond smile warmed Rachel's numb face. “Thank you.” 

Whether she was thanking him for suddenly appearing and trying to help; for bothering to care; the fun they had had; his assertion that she would always be in his memory; the snow days throughout her short life; or for just being Jack Frost, Rachel wasn’t sure. More than likely, though, it was all of the above. No matter how lonely she felt, or how hopeless and pointless it all seemed, she'd always have something to fall back on. She certainly wouldn’t be forgetting that night for a long, long time.


End file.
